Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Xcel Energy Colorado CEO Robert Kenneycq announced a pilot project Wednesday to move electricity much slower than the speed of light, at perhaps 60 mph.The Wireless Alternative by Train Transport (WATT) project is testing the viability of shipping up to two gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity stored in batteries anywhere in the country where rail lines exist, but electrical transmission lines don’t.The pilot project will move about 384 megawatt-hours of energy daily by train from Pueblo’s Comanche Generating Station to Denver’s Cherokee Generating Station.cq Trains will move between the power plants, alternating recharging in Pueblo with discharging power on Denver’s already strained grid, said SunTrain founder and chief technical officer Christopher Smith.cq”That’s enough to power 400,000 homes for an hour,” said Smith said. “And if we have a hundred of these rail cars, that’s when you start getting into the gigawatt-hour level, which is a tremendous amount of energy that can help support the grid.”Smith said a two-gigawatt trainload of electricity could power two million homes for an hour or about 85,000 homes for a full day.Smith said the design objective is to provide electricity from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. when demand surges but renewable energy drops off.The alternative now is to start up natural gas peaking plants, which detracts from Polis’ net zero carbon energy by 2040 climate change agenda. Having enough battery-stored electricity to avoid using natural gas during that peak period gets Colorado closer to achieving that goal.The theory behind moving all that energy by train rather than electrical transmission lines is that where transmission lines don’t exist, or are overloaded by our burgeoning energy needs, a train-mounted rechargeable two-gigawatt battery can be moved from places where energy generation is plentiful to places that need a boost in available power, according to Smith. That’s especially especially true in the evening, when solar panels stop producing electricity.This system, said Smith, has an advantage over building new high-voltage power lines — which can take 10 to 20 years to plan and build. In the short term, the railroad network can move substantial amounts of energy cost-effectively and can begin doing so as soon as the batteries and charging-discharging infrastructure are built.”One of the things that most people don’t know is that freight trains are actually incredibly efficient,” said Smith. “Those diesel locomotives get 454 miles per freight ton per gallon of diesel, which is incredible.”Each battery car weighs 286,000 lbs. pounds. According to Smith’s numbers, a one-way trip from Pueblo to Denver would use about 3,780 gallons of diesel fuel, releasing about 84,672 pounds of carbon dioxide per trip. Assuming two trips per day along the 130 mile route, that amounts to about 30,903 tons of CO2 per year.But Smith said the company plans to eventually move to all-electric locomoti
Lun. Gen 13th, 2025
